Here are today’s viral videos and the one-year-old video of faceoff between Indian and Chinese troops along the Tawang border is trending. See them here:
https://youtube.com/shorts/6gE–usZAKY?feature=share
https://youtube.com/shorts/S5M8UVX4VOg?feature=share
https://youtube.com/shorts/5YWxh6oa8Xc?feature=share
While social media platforms are the primary source of political information for a growing number of people, a majority of Twitter users do not follow either members of Congress, their president or news media, a new study suggests.
They are much more likely to follow Tom Hanks or Katie Perry than an elected official.
“Those users who do follow political accounts on Twitter, however, stick to insular online communities and mostly follow and share information from their political in-group,” said Magdalena Wojcieszak, lead author and professor of communication at the University of California, Davis, and the University of Amsterdam.
In other words, speaking to ongoing debates about so-called “echo chambers” on social media platforms, the small group of users who do follow political elites display clear political biases and engage with these elites in a very one-sided way.
The findings come after researchers from UC Davis and New York University analyzed four years’ worth of data from a sampling of 1.5 million Twitter users.
Researchers concluded that even though the group of social media users who display political biases in their online behaviors is small, it is nevertheless consequential. These users are much more vocal, participatory and active online, thus amplifying the general perception of unprecedented polarization.
“In this project, we focus on national political elites due to their visibility and national-level influence on public opinion and the political process,” Wojcieszak said. Yet, despite the prominence and impact of presidents, congressmen, journalists, pundits and the news media, researchers found that only 40% of Twitter users follow one or more political “elites.” The remaining 60% follow no political actors at all.
“Given that we analyzed over 2,500 American political elite accounts including Donald Trump, Joe Biden, prominent pundits including Rachel Maddow and Sean Hannity, and the most popular media outlets such as MSNBC and Fox News, the fact that only 23% of the representative sample of over 1.5 million users follow three of more of such elite accounts is revealing,” Wojcieszak said.
The authors found that those users who do follow politicians, pundits and news media follow their political in-group at much higher rates than out-group elites (around 90% vs. 10%) and share tweets from in-group elites overwhelmingly more frequently than out-group tweets (at about a 13:1 ratio). And when users share out-group tweets, they tend to add negative comments to these reshares, further reinforcing ideological biases online.
The research also reveals important ideological asymmetries: conservative users are roughly twice as likely as liberals to share in-group versus out-group content, as well as to add negative commentary to out-group shares.
Social Media/Photo:indiainternationaltimes
“Overall, the majority of American Twitter users are not sufficiently interested in politics to follow even a single political or media elite from our list,” Wojcieszak said. Researchers wrote that they found this surprising, since it is generally believed that Twitter users are more politically engaged than the general population.
Given a growing radicalization in America, decreasing support for democratic norms, and rising support for political violence, concerns about political biases on social media platforms are valid, no matter how small the groups displaying those biases may be.
“At the same time,” Wojcieszak said, “we have to remember that these political biases are far removed from the everyday online behaviors of most politically disinterested Americans, who simply don’t care and prefer to immerse themselves in entertainment or sports. Our findings should help us all keep in perspective the concerns about the so-called ‘echo chambers’ online.”
Washington, Sep 16 (IANS) US district judge Aileen Cannon has rejected the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) request to revive the criminal probe against Donald Trump in the classified documents case and instead appointed a judge picked by the former President as special master to review the documents seized by the FBI on August 8 from his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.
Raymond Dearie, a Brooklyn-based federal judge, was selected on Thursday to serve as an independent arbiter to review the materials seized during the surprise search.
His name was put forward as a possible candidate for the special master’s role by Trump, CNN reported.
The special master will be a Senior Judge who had sued in court to obtain the review.
The DOJ also endorsed Dearie’s appointment.
Trump claims he declassified Mar-a-Lago docs, but his lawyers avoid making that assertion, CNN said.
Judge Cannon’s rejection of the DOJ’s bid to revive its criminal investigation into the classified has set the stage for the Department’s dispute with Trump over the search to move quickly to an appeals court and potentially the Supreme Court.
Cannon gave the special master a deadline of November 30 to complete his review.
The schedule puts the review ending after the mid-term congressional elections — essentially guaranteeing the Mar-a-Lago investigation will move slowly for the next two months, unless a higher court steps in, CNN said.
This means Trump gets a reprieve, unless blocked by a higher court, and enough time to campaign for his candidates for the midterms, a sort of victory for him.
Trump backed candidates initially won the primaries but, after President Joe Biden announced the inflation reduction act and signed an Executive Order on abortion rights, the former President’s candidates started losing the primaries in important states.
Judge Dearie, a Ronald Reagan appointee and picked by Trump now takes centre stage.
He sits on the district court for the Eastern District of Brooklyn, where he has taken senior status — meaning his workload has been lightened significantly as he nears the end of his time on the federal bench.
Dearie was appointed as a judge in 1986 and was for a time the chief judge of the Brooklyn-based district court. He also served a seven-year term, concluding in 2019, on the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), CNN said.
In his role as a FISC judge, Dearie was one of the judges who approved one of the DOJ’s requests to surveil former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page, as part of the federal inquiry into Russia 2016 election interference.
US President Donald Trump in his first Presidential address has put “America First”, setting the tone for an inward-looking diplomacy that might radically change the course of world events since the Pearl Harbor attack seven decades ago.
“We assembled here today are issuing a new decree to be heard in every city, in every foreign capital, and in every hall of power. From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land. From this day forward, it’s going to be only America first, America first,” he said in his first Presidential speech.
In domestic politics, what President Trump proclaimed was feasible but in international politics, diplomacy varies from capital to capital and region to region. Depending on where he stands, it changes.
To begin with, going westward, America of Trump may seek more from Japan where it has stationed its war fleet round the clock for a sum. Now this has to be a ransom to sustain what Trump wanted. Will Tokyo, stuck in a stagnated economy, tax its citizens more to pay Uncle Sam?
Australia and New Zealand, who fall in line every time an emergency struck the US in the past, may not benefit from America First policy directly but certainly they can look inward for a domestically centred economic push, instead of looking at Washington DC for succour.
Asia is as divided as ever. China may tremble under the pressure of a constant panic button by an erstwhile businessman who may want more concessions or threaten to replete the markets for ever. China may retaliate in many ways including selling its US dollar reserves which are in plenty. This may be an uphill task but once mooted, even the US economy will shake.
India, being a late entrant into the US-dominated international politics after the Cold War, will have to safeguard its Information Technology companies and contracts whether H1B visa is there or not. The time is for Indian honchos to give room to their US counterparts in office space to thwart any direct attack from Trump. It is going to be a roller-coaster ride for Indian IT companies for the next four years.
Pakistan, whose Prime Minister woke up to a sudden phone call from President-elect Trump, may cosy up to the fact that they have to rein in on Islamic leaders either willingly or unwillingly for the next four years. US troops in Afghan border will remain a direct answer to every word that Trump speaks from now onwards. How Taliban in Kabul outskirts reacts to Trump will shape the drone war in the vicinity of Hindukush mountains.
Middle East will remain the major beneficiary from the Trump Administration as long as the Arabs keep their oil wells in tact and hand over the IS agents in return for business considerations. One pointer is that oil prices will be given a push to touch $100 if diplomacy by business is what Trump means.
More of Israel than Iran in Middle East policy will gain currency again. To achieve this, United Kingdom will have to be roped in and NATO alliance has to remain in its place to keep Russia’s Putin in place. US future with Europe is so intertwined that no President can just distance the siblings here.
Africa in the backyard, as usual, with focus on warlords and military mafia who will resurrect terror and attract Trump’s attention eventually tasting his iron-handed approach. Unlike the previous Bush administration, Trump may be forced to involve more in African affairs, for a change now.
Back to borders with other American nations like Mexico, he may build a wall but how much of the cost will be footed by the Mexican drug mafia, if not the Mexican government, will be the major question. Other Latin Americans may wait in the wings for the next administration to take over in 2021.
All said and done, Trump’s slogan remains the same – “Yes, together, we will make America great again.”
